Jelly Bean Is Now On A Majority Of Android Devices

Last week, Google finally unveiled Android 4.4 KitKat alongside the new Nexus 5. While a new version of Android is certainly cause to celebrate, most of the world is still going to be using Jelly Bean for the foreseeable future. That's a good thing though as a majority of the world's Android devices are now running Android 4.1 through 4.3.

In the latest update to the Android distribution numbers, Google shows that Jelly Bean is now on 52.1 percent of all Android devices. Unsurprisingly, version 4.1 is still the dominant form of Jelly Bean with it running on 37.3 percent of all devices. Version 4.3 has also seen some relatively strong growth as it now commands 2.3 percent of the Android ecosystem despite being introduced back in July.

It's been almost a year and a half since the first version of Jelly Bean was introduced at Google I/O 2012. Since then, Android has become the dominant mobile OS on the planet, and it has even started to appear on more than just mobile devices. In the last year, Jelly Bean became the OS of choice for a new line of handheld and home gaming consoles, like the Nvidia Shield and Ouya.

As for the future, it's looking pretty bright for KitKat. Google announced last week that it intends to make KitKat available to all Android devices regardless of their specs. This should help eradicate Gingerbread from its still powerful position on the Android distribution charts as it has only remained relevant due to the large number of low-end devices that are sold in emerging markets like China and India. With Android 4.4, the latest version of Google's mobile OS will finally be able to run on these devices thus allowing low-end device manufacturers to stand on equal footing with the big guys when it comes to which Android version they can offer consumers.